Don't go to Dental School

[longhornpride]

Assuming you go to one of these private schools. After tuition, living costs, undergrad costs, interest... say you're looking at 450k debt.

Starting income- $150,000 (generous starting salary but very doable)
Federal tax- about 32000
lets assume no state tax
Medicare and SS- about 10000
Lets assume 110k after taxes it roughly about 9k after taxes
Rent- $1000
Utilities- $300 (cable, internet, electricity, water, misc, cell phone)
Loan payment on a 10 year fixed at 6.8 for 450000 is a little over 5k
Car Note- $300
Health Insurance- $200-300 if independent contractor not provided by work
Disability Insurance- $100-200
Malpractice (cheap the first few years) avg about- $100 a month
Car Insurance, Life Insurance etc- $50-100 a month
Gas, Food, Clothes, Misc- $1000 a month

You're basically breaking even every month. Basically if you go to a private school, you'll need to be on IBR which is a total scam or a long term 25 year note where you will be paying over a million. You'll need to work 50-60 hour weeks at a corporate office to make 150k+. You will work in a high volume, high stress environment. I always laugh when pre-dents say I'm doing it to help people and put smiles on their faces.

Not saying to go to school or not. I would still do dentistry bc you can live a comfortable life. But it comes with a lot of bull****. Definitely would not do it for 400k+ unless mom or dad will pay it off for you. I'm currently in the process of climbing my way out of 400k+ debt. It's not easy. Firm is just letting you know what it's like after school if you take on that much debt.

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[ClosetNerd828]

Lol hilarious pre-dental mentality. Would love to see the same kids discussing in 15 yrs.

Im 29 going on 30. I moved out of my parent's when I was 17. Ive served my country in combat, raised a family, held a full time job while in school. Please go on and enlighten all of us children about how your life after 20+ years in academia hasn't been as cushy as you had once thought.

 

[faceman]

did you get into any dental schools yet? i remember reading somewhere u got waitlisted at all interviews correct?

Yeah I did get Waitlisted at UConn.. Very upset at that.

NYU was an ego thing lol

 

[oralcare123]

To my knowledge even corporate positions depending on the contract are more around $100,000-120,000+ a year even in saturated areas. Why do you say $90,000? Has the salary gone down that much? I would definitely not accept a job that pays that little especially if I have 500k in debt. I would move and find anywhere that will offer me a better deal.

He is doing it on purpose to scare you

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

I'm sorry that you feel that this is a comment on your generation. It's not. And for the record, I'm not a baby boomer. Perhaps we should do the math. If you make $90,000 per year, your not likely to take home more than $70,000 of that after taxes. That works out to $5,833/month. With $500,000 in debt at 4.5% you'll be paying a minimum of $2,500/month for 30 years. You'll have $2,800/month left over to pay all your bills, save for retirement, raise your children, etc. You're a saint for wanting to work for free and wanting to risk not being able to retire. God bless you. However, I don't think you speak for most people in your generation. It's not selfish or wrong to want a comfortable lifestyle.

It isn't selfish or wrong. 90K a year is by no means free. I apologize for not having mentioned this in my response to your post but I will be about $180k in debt. I completely agree with you that at $500k it is a huge risk. I do think that I speak for my generation. We are optimistic and altruistic even in the face of 5.84% interest that goes up every year, not 4.5%.

For the record, that's 5 years of $4500/mo in loan payments, and $1,300/mo to live off of, not including the potential income of a spouse. A general dentist with that debt burden and payback plan is free at 31.

 

[Advance]

Yeah I am a pre-dent and hoping to get into a cheap state school.

Why not just go into finance and eliminate the risk all together?

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

,

 

[willwash]

I'll be on the GI Bill...at my in-state that means I'm going for free.

 

[darknightzzz]

4 hours and 158 replies with 1k2 views. ................

 

[longhornpride]

I think part of the reward for busting your ass to get into your state school and choosing to go there is not having a debt burden of $450k. That's too much, I agree. You know more than I do about climbing out of that hole, and I bet it is tough. However, I don't think it's a laugh to want to incorporate service into a career that starts with less than half that debt.

I personally think I would do it again at 250k or less or even 300k. 400-500k is just financial suicide unless you can start making 250-300k a year starting out. You will be in debt forever. You have to push getting married, having kids, buying a house, a practice, etc much further if you're constantly trying to pay off a mountain of loans. You should always incorporate the best service. After all, we take an oath. Maybe it's the demographic I work in but most of the patients I see are very ungrateful, entitled, and untrustworthy.

And just so we're clear. I enjoy what I do. I enjoy my career. I think many of you will love it also. But if you're going to USC, NYU, BU, Tufts, etc... just know what you're getting yourselves into. Might be best to reapply and go to a state school.

 

[johnho771]

Can it be worth it if you specialize? Any specialties look promising? I have heard mixed things about ortho. What about others?

 

[beachbum627]

It's not worth it. You'll end up graduating with $500,000+ in debt and will spend your entire life working in a corporation paying it off. The dental ship has sailed. You have been warned.

Not everyone will experience what you are describing. While it may be true for some, it does not apply to everyone.

 

[Firm]

To my knowledge even corporate positions depending on the contract are more around $100,000-120,000+ a year even in saturated areas. Why do you say $90,000? Has the salary gone down that much? I would definitely not accept a job that pays that little especially if I have 500k in debt. I would move and find anywhere that will offer me a better deal.

Right now. With more labor the pay will decrease.

 

[kholley25]

I see your point OP, but not everyone is going to be 500K in debt and working in saturated areas. However, I pray for those who are.

EDIT:

Just finished reading the rest of the thread. OP, I think the reason others are upset is because you are telling the truth, albeit from your perspective. Yes, corporate dentistry is expanding and it's different than in the past. New schools are popping up quickly and certain markets WILL saturate. Tuition is skyrocketing. It's a tough pill to swallow, especially if your an individual that JUST got accepted to begin a career that you have been anticipating for quite some time.

And honestly, I think your point of view is healthy for pre-dents. The world can be an ugly place and some things aren't as good as they seem on the surface. People, in general, tend to naturally confirm their biases: "Oh, I can make 300K 5 years out of school. Look at these dentists on dentaltown and SDN; I can (and likely will) be them if I try!" Reality sucks, but I appreciate you taking the time to ground some of us. It's important to know what we're getting ourselves into, even if the future is largely unknown.

 

[azxken]

Because of these posts, I might have more chance of acceptance. Thank you

 

[CharlestonToothCompany]

I know Firm and we were discussing this on the Orthotown forum this morning. He means well. It was (and has been) my idea to try to warn/inform those who follow us. He just knew that there was a forum (SDN) to discuss this. It is pointless for orthodontists to discuss this amongst ourselves. We cannot change our situations and are stuck, for better or worse. In his case, he caught a wave and made it. In my case, I didn't catch it in time and am floundering. I graduated in 2001. I am still struggling.

I went to a state school with 10k tuition per year, but with living expenses in an expensive city (tiny apartment), I made it up to 125K in loans, luckily frozen at 2.99% interest. Two years of ortho doubled that. I've worked corporate and it sucks. If you have any desire for autonomy in clinical judgment, it will be severely tested. If you have a moral compass, you will see it severely strained. I did my own practice for 8 years. It beats you down and I ended up selling to a colleague 5 miles away in competitive market. Yes, many of you are, like me, idealistic and really enjoy the clinical aspect. All I wanted to do was move teeth. But your concentration on professional contentment cannot defy the laws of economics when you run a business. What comes in must be greater than what goes out. If you don't own your own business and work corporate, they will take care of income and outgo, but you give up autonomy as earlier described.

And lest you think the laws of supply and demand have no hold on you, I tell you plainly that they do. The more dental schools they create, the more dental students in each class, the more dentists that graduate. And the more graduates there are the lower your wages will be. There will always be a new cog being created one year behind you who will be very eager to take your place in the wheel if you don't want to take a pay cut or you try to tell them that this was not how you were taught to treat patients in dental school. And insurance plans will eat up what is left of you. With more dentists, prices will have to drop (yes, even in boutique fee-for-service practices). The pie that these special practices enjoy (the patient who values what they offer despite the cost) is shrinking. I was fee-for-service when I first opened up. Then economic reality hit.

For those that are in dental school, it, like for us already out, is too late to change careers. You are stuck and will have to make the best of it and to help those who follow you. Now for those who follow you (pre-dental), I urge these pre-dentals to take stock of the dental landscape that awaits them with an understanding that things are in a dynamic fluid state and will change. Right now, the winds of change do not bode well. Translation: it's not good and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

I recently looked at the list of all the ADA accredited Ortho residencies and dental schools. I was astonished at the list of new ones since I graduated dental school in 2001:

Midwestern Univ, Glendale, AZ
AZ School of Dentistry, Mesa, AZ
Western Univ of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA
Univ of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL
Midwestern Univ, Downers Grove, IL (suburban Chicago)
Southern Illinois Univ, Alton, IL (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
Univ of New England, Potland, ME
Missouri School of Dentistry, Kirksville, MO
East Carolina Univ, Greenville, NC
Rutgers, Newark, NJ (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
UNLV, Las Veags, NV
Roseman Univ, South Jordan, UT (suburb of Salt Lake City)
Univ of UT, Salt Lake City, UT

What happened to the market self regulating itself? Are the ones that start these programs out of touch with the economics of dentistry?!?! These kids are like lambs being led someplace not not so nice. And that I why I have been beating this drum for awhile. We owe it to those who follow us.

I think now is the time to wake these kids up. Before they take out 400-600K in debt... before they realize they have minimal chance of making it....before they sink the little dinghy the rest of us are crowded on.

But if kids wake up and don't bother applying, enrollment will drop, and schools will have to cut expenses. That will include cutting spots. Professors will have to teach more for less. It will be painful for all. But eventually it will rectify and we may yet have another golden age of dentistry before I retire in 30 years. If not, we will be in the dark ages for a long time.

But the sooner the correction, the better. It is just like anything. Look at the economy and the printing (actually electronic generation) of money. The longer we put off the correction, the longer and more painful will be that correction. There are economic laws that cannot be violated. There needs to be a correction with regards to the oversupply of dentists and a correction with the cost of that education.

This is why I have been beating drum for years that we should "wake up those who follow us". Not only dental students interested in ortho, but more importantly, pre-dental students interested in dental school. Speaking in idyllic terms, if, in every town where there is a college, the dentists in that town got together at pre-dental gatherings to give their opinion of the current state of dentistry and their forecast, then maybe we could chip away at the problem instead of waiting for 5-10 years for students to realize how deep a hole they have dug themselves in. Yes, it would be a partly self-serving talk at these gatherings, but any kid with a brain could engage his own self-preservation mechanism and figure this out. Orthos could do the same in towns where there are dental schools.

It could be as simple as them explaining, "Yes, steering you away from becoming a dentist [or orthodontist] will help me, but it will help you as well. You could take that 300K in student loans and open a business instead. Alternatively, if you pursue this avenue, you will graduate with 200-400K [300K-600K] in student loans making only 75-125K [100-150k] per year. These are the laws of economics. You will live a pauper's life paying this burden off. As your predecessors, we have failed you by not properly regulating our own profession. The Golden Age we were sold in dental [orthodontic] school is over. We are now entering the Dark Ages. Enter at your own risk."

Will they listen? They may or they may not. But I think we owe it to them and try. Those that heed the message will be saved. Those that were arrogant to think they knew better and shot the messenger changed nothing about the message and will suffer.

Actually if 4th year dental students or new dentists (who haven't "made" it yet) come talk to pre-dental students as well about the paltry jobs they have to take (if they can even find one), they may listen more intently because they are closer to the their station in life compared to the "fat cats".

I would add that my idea, in addition to reducing the eventual supply of dentists (and orthodontists), would actually lower the tuition for those who, if properly informed of the landscape, have the intestinal fortitude to plow ahead anyway. This is because informing pre-dental students of the dental landscape (and informing dental students of the orthodontic landscape) will cause enrollment to plummet.

Tuition will drop immediately as the schools have to fight for the best candidates by dropping tuition to attract them. Some will not even be able to fight for the best candidate, instead having to try to find any warm body to fill a chair. Some will have to close their doors. So while government guarantees have helped to prop up tuition hikes, the influence of government guarantees on tuition rates will diminish if you can't find people to go to the school. I truly believe unfettered free markets would sort it out, but we do not have that. We have government intervention and pre-dental students that are ill-informed through no fault of their own.

After thinking about this for a very long time, I think the only thing that will work for the profession is the natural swing of the pendulum as kids in college realize it is not worth it to go into dentistry or orthodontics since there are too many GPs and Orthos already and the school loans are staggering. That will drop enrollment and dental schools will have to cut back or close like they did a-la Fairleigh Dickinson & Georgetown in 1990 and Emory in 1988. It is the natural cycle of things, boom and bust. But the carnage along the way will be horrific. Hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, what could help is if we reach out to college kids in pre-dental programs and dental students interested in orthodontics and inform them of what lays ahead lest they be led down the primrose path!

The AAO is powerless and the ADA is complicit. Organized dentistry will not solve this. We, the ones who have gone before, will have to.

 

[Firm]

I see your point OP, but not everyone is going to be 500K in debt and working in saturated areas. However, I pray for those who are.

True. You just want the highest chance of succeeding when you are taking such a huge risk. Anybody who takes out money for dental school should be able to find a job that allows them to pay it back. Unfortunately there will be many who can't

 

[str8ner]

To my knowledge even corporate positions depending on the contract are more around $100,000-120,000+ a year even in saturated areas. Why do you say $90,000? Has the salary gone down that much? I would definitely not accept a job that pays that little especially if I have 500k in debt. I would move and find anywhere that will offer me a better deal.

rxdmx372 Said 90K. I just went with it. You can make more and you can make less I've seen both. If you don't find a job, you're making $0. I'm out guys. Clearly you're the smartest generation ever. And you can't be fooled by us shady greedy old guys trying to screw you. You're right. Dentistry is awesome! I look forward to you telling me how you outsmarted the older generations.

 

[Firm]

I know Firm and we were discussing this on the Orthotown forum this morning. He means well. It was (and has been) my idea to try to warn/inform those who follow us. He just knew that there was a forum (SDN) to discuss this. It is pointless for orthodontists to discuss this amongst ourselves. We cannot change our situations and are stuck, for better or worse. In his case, he caught a wave and made it. In my case, I didn't catch it in time and am floundering. I graduated in 2001. I am still struggling.

I went to a state school with 10k tuition per year, but with living expenses in an expensive city (tiny apartment), I made it up to 125K in loans, luckily frozen at 2.99% interest. Two years of ortho doubled that. I've worked corporate and it sucks. If you have any desire for autonomy in clinical judgment, it will be severely tested. If you have a moral compass, you will see it severely strained. I did my own practice for 8 years. It beats you down and I ended up selling to a colleague 5 miles away in competitive market. Yes, many of you are, like me, idealistic and really enjoy the clinical aspect. All I wanted to do was move teeth. But your concentration on professional contentment cannot defy the laws of economics when you run a business. What comes in must be greater than what goes out. If you don't own your own business and work corporate, they will take care of income and outgo, but you give up autonomy as earlier described.

And lest you think the laws of supply and demand have no hold on you, I tell you plainly that they do. The more dental schools they create, the more dental students in each class, the more dentists that graduate. And the more graduates there are the lower your wages will be. There will always be a new cog being created one year behind you who will be very eager to take your place in the wheel if you don't want to take a pay cut or you try to tell them that this was not how you were taught to treat patients in dental school. And insurance plans will eat up what is left of you. With more dentists, prices will have to drop (yes, even in boutique fee-for-service practices). The pie that these special practices enjoy (the patient who values what they offer despite the cost) is shrinking. I was fee-for-service when I first opened up. Then economic reality hit.

For those that are in dental school, it, like for us already out, is too late to change careers. You are stuck and will have to make the best of it and to help those who follow you. Now for those who follow you (pre-dental), I urge these pre-dentals to take stock of the dental landscape that awaits them with an understanding that things are in a dynamic fluid state and will change. Right now, the winds of change do not bode well. Translation: it's not good and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

I recently looked at the list of all the ADA accredited Ortho residencies and dental schools. I was astonished at the list of new ones since I graduated dental school in 2001:

Midwestern Univ, Glendale, AZ
AZ School of Dentistry, Mesa, AZ
Western Univ of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA
Univ of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL
Midwestern Univ, Downers Grove, IL (suburban Chicago)
Southern Illinois Univ, Alton, IL (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
Univ of New England, Potland, ME
Missouri School of Dentistry, Kirksville, MO
East Carolina Univ, Greenville, NC
Rutgers, Newark, NJ (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
UNLV, Las Veags, NV
Roseman Univ, South Jordan, UT (suburb of Salt Lake City)
Univ of UT, Salt Lake City, UT

What happened to the market self regulating itself? Are the ones that start these programs out of touch with the economics of dentistry?!?! These kids are like lambs being led someplace not not so nice. And that I why I have been beating this drum for awhile. We owe it to those who follow us.

I think now is the time to wake these kids up. Before they take out 400-600K in debt... before they realize they have minimal chance of making it....before they sink the little dinghy the rest of us are crowded on.

But if kids wake up and don't bother applying, enrollment will drop, and schools will have to cut expenses. That will include cutting spots. Professors will have to teach more for less. It will be painful for all. But eventually it will rectify and we may yet have another golden age of dentistry before I retire in 30 years. If not, we will be in the dark ages for a long time.

But the sooner the correction, the better. It is just like anything. Look at the economy and the printing (actually electronic generation) of money. The longer we put off the correction, the longer and more painful will be that correction. There are economic laws that cannot be violated. There needs to be a correction with regards to the oversupply of dentists and a correction with the cost of that education.

This is why I have been beating drum for years that we should "wake up those who follow us". Not only dental students interested in ortho, but more importantly, pre-dental students interested in dental school. Speaking in idyllic terms, if, in every town where there is a college, the dentists in that town got together at pre-dental gatherings to give their opinion of the current state of dentistry and their forecast, then maybe we could chip away at the problem instead of waiting for 5-10 years for students to realize how deep a hole they have dug themselves in. Yes, it would be a partly self-serving talk at these gatherings, but any kid with a brain could engage his own self-preservation mechanism and figure this out. Orthos could do the same in towns where there are dental schools.

It could be as simple as them explaining, "Yes, steering you away from becoming a dentist [or orthodontist] will help me, but it will help you as well. You could take that 300K in student loans and open a business instead. Alternatively, if you pursue this avenue, you will graduate with 200-400K [300K-600K] in student loans making only 75-125K [100-150k] per year. These are the laws of economics. You will live a pauper's life paying this burden off. As your predecessors, we have failed you by not properly regulating our own profession. The Golden Age we were sold in dental [orthodontic] school is over. We are now entering the Dark Ages. Enter at your own risk."

Will they listen? They may or they may not. But I think we owe it to them and try. Those that heed the message will be saved. Those that were arrogant to think they knew better and shot the messenger changed nothing about the message and will suffer.

Actually if 4th year dental students or new dentists (who haven't "made" it yet) come talk to pre-dental students as well about the paltry jobs they have to take (if they can even find one), they may listen more intently because they are closer to the their station in life compared to the "fat cats".

I would add that my idea, in addition to reducing the eventual supply of dentists (and orthodontists), would actually lower the tuition for those who, if properly informed of the landscape, have the intestinal fortitude to plow ahead anyway. This is because informing pre-dental students of the dental landscape (and informing dental students of the orthodontic landscape) will cause enrollment to plummet.

Tuition will drop immediately as the schools have to fight for the best candidates by dropping tuition to attract them. Some will not even be able to fight for the best candidate, instead having to try to find any warm body to fill a chair. Some will have to close their doors. So while government guarantees have helped to prop up tuition hikes, the influence of government guarantees on tuition rates will diminish if you can't find people to go to the school. I truly believe unfettered free markets would sort it out, but we do not have that. We have government intervention and pre-dental students that are ill-informed through no fault of their own.

After thinking about this for a very long time, I think the only thing that will work for the profession is the natural swing of the pendulum as kids in college realize it is not worth it to go into dentistry or orthodontics since there are too many GPs and Orthos already and the school loans are staggering. That will drop enrollment and dental schools will have to cut back or close like they did a-la Fairleigh Dickinson & Georgetown in 1990 and Emory in 1988. It is the natural cycle of things, boom and bust. But the carnage along the way will be horrific. Hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, what could help is if we reach out to college kids in pre-dental programs and dental students interested in orthodontics and inform them of what lays ahead lest they be led down the primrose path!

The AAO is powerless and the ADA is complicit. Organized dentistry will not solve this. We, the ones who have gone before, will have to.

Please listen to him. My thread was inspired from a thread he wrote earlier this morning. The baby boomers are selling you down the river. They are opening these schools to give themselves jobs just like Journalism departments. They'll load you up with debt and let you drown. Charleston is a very smart man.

 

[GoldenDomer11]

Are these threads commonplace on sdn? I wonder if you could go back 10 years ago and find threads just like this one.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Incis0r]

I know Firm and we were discussing this on the Orthotown forum this morning. He means well. It was (and has been) my idea to try to warn/inform those who follow us. He just knew that there was a forum (SDN) to discuss this. It is pointless for orthodontists to discuss this amongst ourselves. We cannot change our situations and are stuck, for better or worse. In his case, he caught a wave and made it. In my case, I didn't catch it in time and am floundering. I graduated in 2001. I am still struggling.

I went to a state school with 10k tuition per year, but with living expenses in an expensive city (tiny apartment), I made it up to 125K in loans, luckily frozen at 2.99% interest. Two years of ortho doubled that. I've worked corporate and it sucks. If you have any desire for autonomy in clinical judgment, it will be severely tested. If you have a moral compass, you will see it severely strained. I did my own practice for 8 years. It beats you down and I ended up selling to a colleague 5 miles away in competitive market. Yes, many of you are, like me, idealistic and really enjoy the clinical aspect. All I wanted to do was move teeth. But your concentration on professional contentment cannot defy the laws of economics when you run a business. What comes in must be greater than what goes out. If you don't own your own business and work corporate, they will take care of income and outgo, but you give up autonomy as earlier described.

And lest you think the laws of supply and demand have no hold on you, I tell you plainly that they do. The more dental schools they create, the more dental students in each class, the more dentists that graduate. And the more graduates there are the lower your wages will be. There will always be a new cog being created one year behind you who will be very eager to take your place in the wheel if you don't want to take a pay cut or you try to tell them that this was not how you were taught to treat patients in dental school. And insurance plans will eat up what is left of you. With more dentists, prices will have to drop (yes, even in boutique fee-for-service practices). The pie that these special practices enjoy (the patient who values what they offer despite the cost) is shrinking. I was fee-for-service when I first opened up. Then economic reality hit.

For those that are in dental school, it, like for us already out, is too late to change careers. You are stuck and will have to make the best of it and to help those who follow you. Now for those who follow you (pre-dental), I urge these pre-dentals to take stock of the dental landscape that awaits them with an understanding that things are in a dynamic fluid state and will change. Right now, the winds of change do not bode well. Translation: it's not good and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

I recently looked at the list of all the ADA accredited Ortho residencies and dental schools. I was astonished at the list of new ones since I graduated dental school in 2001:

Midwestern Univ, Glendale, AZ
AZ School of Dentistry, Mesa, AZ
Western Univ of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA
Univ of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL
Midwestern Univ, Downers Grove, IL (suburban Chicago)
Southern Illinois Univ, Alton, IL (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
Univ of New England, Potland, ME
Missouri School of Dentistry, Kirksville, MO
East Carolina Univ, Greenville, NC
Rutgers, Newark, NJ (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
UNLV, Las Veags, NV
Roseman Univ, South Jordan, UT (suburb of Salt Lake City)
Univ of UT, Salt Lake City, UT

What happened to the market self regulating itself? Are the ones that start these programs out of touch with the economics of dentistry?!?! These kids are like lambs being led someplace not not so nice. And that I why I have been beating this drum for awhile. We owe it to those who follow us.

I think now is the time to wake these kids up. Before they take out 400-600K in debt... before they realize they have minimal chance of making it....before they sink the little dinghy the rest of us are crowded on.

But if kids wake up and don't bother applying, enrollment will drop, and schools will have to cut expenses. That will include cutting spots. Professors will have to teach more for less. It will be painful for all. But eventually it will rectify and we may yet have another golden age of dentistry before I retire in 30 years. If not, we will be in the dark ages for a long time.

But the sooner the correction, the better. It is just like anything. Look at the economy and the printing (actually electronic generation) of money. The longer we put off the correction, the longer and more painful will be that correction. There are economic laws that cannot be violated. There needs to be a correction with regards to the oversupply of dentists and a correction with the cost of that education.

This is why I have been beating drum for years that we should "wake up those who follow us". Not only dental students interested in ortho, but more importantly, pre-dental students interested in dental school. Speaking in idyllic terms, if, in every town where there is a college, the dentists in that town got together at pre-dental gatherings to give their opinion of the current state of dentistry and their forecast, then maybe we could chip away at the problem instead of waiting for 5-10 years for students to realize how deep a hole they have dug themselves in. Yes, it would be a partly self-serving talk at these gatherings, but any kid with a brain could engage his own self-preservation mechanism and figure this out. Orthos could do the same in towns where there are dental schools.

It could be as simple as them explaining, "Yes, steering you away from becoming a dentist [or orthodontist] will help me, but it will help you as well. You could take that 300K in student loans and open a business instead. Alternatively, if you pursue this avenue, you will graduate with 200-400K [300K-600K] in student loans making only 75-125K [100-150k] per year. These are the laws of economics. You will live a pauper's life paying this burden off. As your predecessors, we have failed you by not properly regulating our own profession. The Golden Age we were sold in dental [orthodontic] school is over. We are now entering the Dark Ages. Enter at your own risk."

Will they listen? They may or they may not. But I think we owe it to them and try. Those that heed the message will be saved. Those that were arrogant to think they knew better and shot the messenger changed nothing about the message and will suffer.

Actually if 4th year dental students or new dentists (who haven't "made" it yet) come talk to pre-dental students as well about the paltry jobs they have to take (if they can even find one), they may listen more intently because they are closer to the their station in life compared to the "fat cats".

I would add that my idea, in addition to reducing the eventual supply of dentists (and orthodontists), would actually lower the tuition for those who, if properly informed of the landscape, have the intestinal fortitude to plow ahead anyway. This is because informing pre-dental students of the dental landscape (and informing dental students of the orthodontic landscape) will cause enrollment to plummet.

Tuition will drop immediately as the schools have to fight for the best candidates by dropping tuition to attract them. Some will not even be able to fight for the best candidate, instead having to try to find any warm body to fill a chair. Some will have to close their doors. So while government guarantees have helped to prop up tuition hikes, the influence of government guarantees on tuition rates will diminish if you can't find people to go to the school. I truly believe unfettered free markets would sort it out, but we do not have that. We have government intervention and pre-dental students that are ill-informed through no fault of their own.

After thinking about this for a very long time, I think the only thing that will work for the profession is the natural swing of the pendulum as kids in college realize it is not worth it to go into dentistry or orthodontics since there are too many GPs and Orthos already and the school loans are staggering. That will drop enrollment and dental schools will have to cut back or close like they did a-la Fairleigh Dickinson & Georgetown in 1990 and Emory in 1988. It is the natural cycle of things, boom and bust. But the carnage along the way will be horrific. Hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, what could help is if we reach out to college kids in pre-dental programs and dental students interested in orthodontics and inform them of what lays ahead lest they be led down the primrose path!

The AAO is powerless and the ADA is complicit. Organized dentistry will not solve this. We, the ones who have gone before, will have to.

Thank you and @Firm .
Could you suggest some alternate career paths? That would make the transition away from dentistry MUCH easier.

 

[Firm]

Are these threads commonplace on sdn? I wonder if you could go back 10 years ago and find threads just like this one.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

I've been on here since 2002 and we didn't use to have threads like this. The thought process then was "don't worry, you'll make it back". We were scared about crossing the $100K threshold in loans. The banks also didn't look at student loans. I got approved for $1.2 million less than a year out of school. The common point in all of this is that the older generations are selling the younger generations down the river.

 

[oralcare123]

I know Firm and we were discussing this on the Orthotown forum this morning. He means well. It was (and has been) my idea to try to warn/inform those who follow us. He just knew that there was a forum (SDN) to discuss this. It is pointless for orthodontists to discuss this amongst ourselves. We cannot change our situations and are stuck, for better or worse. In his case, he caught a wave and made it. In my case, I didn't catch it in time and am floundering. I graduated in 2001. I am still struggling.

I went to a state school with 10k tuition per year, but with living expenses in an expensive city (tiny apartment), I made it up to 125K in loans, luckily frozen at 2.99% interest. Two years of ortho doubled that. I've worked corporate and it sucks. If you have any desire for autonomy in clinical judgment, it will be severely tested. If you have a moral compass, you will see it severely strained. I did my own practice for 8 years. It beats you down and I ended up selling to a colleague 5 miles away in competitive market. Yes, many of you are, like me, idealistic and really enjoy the clinical aspect. All I wanted to do was move teeth. But your concentration on professional contentment cannot defy the laws of economics when you run a business. What comes in must be greater than what goes out. If you don't own your own business and work corporate, they will take care of income and outgo, but you give up autonomy as earlier described.

And lest you think the laws of supply and demand have no hold on you, I tell you plainly that they do. The more dental schools they create, the more dental students in each class, the more dentists that graduate. And the more graduates there are the lower your wages will be. There will always be a new cog being created one year behind you who will be very eager to take your place in the wheel if you don't want to take a pay cut or you try to tell them that this was not how you were taught to treat patients in dental school. And insurance plans will eat up what is left of you. With more dentists, prices will have to drop (yes, even in boutique fee-for-service practices). The pie that these special practices enjoy (the patient who values what they offer despite the cost) is shrinking. I was fee-for-service when I first opened up. Then economic reality hit.

For those that are in dental school, it, like for us already out, is too late to change careers. You are stuck and will have to make the best of it and to help those who follow you. Now for those who follow you (pre-dental), I urge these pre-dentals to take stock of the dental landscape that awaits them with an understanding that things are in a dynamic fluid state and will change. Right now, the winds of change do not bode well. Translation: it's not good and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

I recently looked at the list of all the ADA accredited Ortho residencies and dental schools. I was astonished at the list of new ones since I graduated dental school in 2001:

Midwestern Univ, Glendale, AZ
AZ School of Dentistry, Mesa, AZ
Western Univ of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA
Univ of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL
Midwestern Univ, Downers Grove, IL (suburban Chicago)
Southern Illinois Univ, Alton, IL (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
Univ of New England, Potland, ME
Missouri School of Dentistry, Kirksville, MO
East Carolina Univ, Greenville, NC
Rutgers, Newark, NJ (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
UNLV, Las Veags, NV
Roseman Univ, South Jordan, UT (suburb of Salt Lake City)
Univ of UT, Salt Lake City, UT

What happened to the market self regulating itself? Are the ones that start these programs out of touch with the economics of dentistry?!?! These kids are like lambs being led someplace not not so nice. And that I why I have been beating this drum for awhile. We owe it to those who follow us.

I think now is the time to wake these kids up. Before they take out 400-600K in debt... before they realize they have minimal chance of making it....before they sink the little dinghy the rest of us are crowded on.

But if kids wake up and don't bother applying, enrollment will drop, and schools will have to cut expenses. That will include cutting spots. Professors will have to teach more for less. It will be painful for all. But eventually it will rectify and we may yet have another golden age of dentistry before I retire in 30 years. If not, we will be in the dark ages for a long time.

But the sooner the correction, the better. It is just like anything. Look at the economy and the printing (actually electronic generation) of money. The longer we put off the correction, the longer and more painful will be that correction. There are economic laws that cannot be violated. There needs to be a correction with regards to the oversupply of dentists and a correction with the cost of that education.

This is why I have been beating drum for years that we should "wake up those who follow us". Not only dental students interested in ortho, but more importantly, pre-dental students interested in dental school. Speaking in idyllic terms, if, in every town where there is a college, the dentists in that town got together at pre-dental gatherings to give their opinion of the current state of dentistry and their forecast, then maybe we could chip away at the problem instead of waiting for 5-10 years for students to realize how deep a hole they have dug themselves in. Yes, it would be a partly self-serving talk at these gatherings, but any kid with a brain could engage his own self-preservation mechanism and figure this out. Orthos could do the same in towns where there are dental schools.

It could be as simple as them explaining, "Yes, steering you away from becoming a dentist [or orthodontist] will help me, but it will help you as well. You could take that 300K in student loans and open a business instead. Alternatively, if you pursue this avenue, you will graduate with 200-400K [300K-600K] in student loans making only 75-125K [100-150k] per year. These are the laws of economics. You will live a pauper's life paying this burden off. As your predecessors, we have failed you by not properly regulating our own profession. The Golden Age we were sold in dental [orthodontic] school is over. We are now entering the Dark Ages. Enter at your own risk."

Will they listen? They may or they may not. But I think we owe it to them and try. Those that heed the message will be saved. Those that were arrogant to think they knew better and shot the messenger changed nothing about the message and will suffer.

Actually if 4th year dental students or new dentists (who haven't "made" it yet) come talk to pre-dental students as well about the paltry jobs they have to take (if they can even find one), they may listen more intently because they are closer to the their station in life compared to the "fat cats".

I would add that my idea, in addition to reducing the eventual supply of dentists (and orthodontists), would actually lower the tuition for those who, if properly informed of the landscape, have the intestinal fortitude to plow ahead anyway. This is because informing pre-dental students of the dental landscape (and informing dental students of the orthodontic landscape) will cause enrollment to plummet.

Tuition will drop immediately as the schools have to fight for the best candidates by dropping tuition to attract them. Some will not even be able to fight for the best candidate, instead having to try to find any warm body to fill a chair. Some will have to close their doors. So while government guarantees have helped to prop up tuition hikes, the influence of government guarantees on tuition rates will diminish if you can't find people to go to the school. I truly believe unfettered free markets would sort it out, but we do not have that. We have government intervention and pre-dental students that are ill-informed through no fault of their own.

After thinking about this for a very long time, I think the only thing that will work for the profession is the natural swing of the pendulum as kids in college realize it is not worth it to go into dentistry or orthodontics since there are too many GPs and Orthos already and the school loans are staggering. That will drop enrollment and dental schools will have to cut back or close like they did a-la Fairleigh Dickinson & Georgetown in 1990 and Emory in 1988. It is the natural cycle of things, boom and bust. But the carnage along the way will be horrific. Hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, what could help is if we reach out to college kids in pre-dental programs and dental students interested in orthodontics and inform them of what lays ahead lest they be led down the primrose path!

The AAO is powerless and the ADA is complicit. Organized dentistry will not solve this. We, the ones who have gone before, will have to.

So, you are still struggling? 14 years after graduation? What went wrong?

 

[kholley25]

I've been on here since 2002 and we didn't use to have threads like this. The thought process then was "don't worry, you'll make it back". We were scared about crossing the $100K threshold in loans. The banks also didn't look at student loans. I got approved for $1.2 million less than a year out of school. The common point in all of this is that the older generations are selling the younger generations down the river.

What else is new :/

And they dare call US entitled.

 

[ClosetNerd828]

hahaha it is pretty awesome he went and told his buddy what is happening on this thread. Then his buddy creates and account and types a very well written rant, drops mic and never comes back.

 

[aznriptide859]

I know Firm and we were discussing this on the Orthotown forum this morning. He means well. It was (and has been) my idea to try to warn/inform those who follow us. He just knew that there was a forum (SDN) to discuss this. It is pointless for orthodontists to discuss this amongst ourselves. We cannot change our situations and are stuck, for better or worse. In his case, he caught a wave and made it. In my case, I didn't catch it in time and am floundering. I graduated in 2001. I am still struggling.

I went to a state school with 10k tuition per year, but with living expenses in an expensive city (tiny apartment), I made it up to 125K in loans, luckily frozen at 2.99% interest. Two years of ortho doubled that. I've worked corporate and it sucks. If you have any desire for autonomy in clinical judgment, it will be severely tested. If you have a moral compass, you will see it severely strained. I did my own practice for 8 years. It beats you down and I ended up selling to a colleague 5 miles away in competitive market. Yes, many of you are, like me, idealistic and really enjoy the clinical aspect. All I wanted to do was move teeth. But your concentration on professional contentment cannot defy the laws of economics when you run a business. What comes in must be greater than what goes out. If you don't own your own business and work corporate, they will take care of income and outgo, but you give up autonomy as earlier described.

And lest you think the laws of supply and demand have no hold on you, I tell you plainly that they do. The more dental schools they create, the more dental students in each class, the more dentists that graduate. And the more graduates there are the lower your wages will be. There will always be a new cog being created one year behind you who will be very eager to take your place in the wheel if you don't want to take a pay cut or you try to tell them that this was not how you were taught to treat patients in dental school. And insurance plans will eat up what is left of you. With more dentists, prices will have to drop (yes, even in boutique fee-for-service practices). The pie that these special practices enjoy (the patient who values what they offer despite the cost) is shrinking. I was fee-for-service when I first opened up. Then economic reality hit.

For those that are in dental school, it, like for us already out, is too late to change careers. You are stuck and will have to make the best of it and to help those who follow you. Now for those who follow you (pre-dental), I urge these pre-dentals to take stock of the dental landscape that awaits them with an understanding that things are in a dynamic fluid state and will change. Right now, the winds of change do not bode well. Translation: it's not good and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

I recently looked at the list of all the ADA accredited Ortho residencies and dental schools. I was astonished at the list of new ones since I graduated dental school in 2001:

Midwestern Univ, Glendale, AZ
AZ School of Dentistry, Mesa, AZ
Western Univ of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA
Univ of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL
Midwestern Univ, Downers Grove, IL (suburban Chicago)
Southern Illinois Univ, Alton, IL (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
Univ of New England, Potland, ME
Missouri School of Dentistry, Kirksville, MO
East Carolina Univ, Greenville, NC
Rutgers, Newark, NJ (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
UNLV, Las Veags, NV
Roseman Univ, South Jordan, UT (suburb of Salt Lake City)
Univ of UT, Salt Lake City, UT

What happened to the market self regulating itself? Are the ones that start these programs out of touch with the economics of dentistry?!?! These kids are like lambs being led someplace not not so nice. And that I why I have been beating this drum for awhile. We owe it to those who follow us.

I think now is the time to wake these kids up. Before they take out 400-600K in debt... before they realize they have minimal chance of making it....before they sink the little dinghy the rest of us are crowded on.

But if kids wake up and don't bother applying, enrollment will drop, and schools will have to cut expenses. That will include cutting spots. Professors will have to teach more for less. It will be painful for all. But eventually it will rectify and we may yet have another golden age of dentistry before I retire in 30 years. If not, we will be in the dark ages for a long time.

But the sooner the correction, the better. It is just like anything. Look at the economy and the printing (actually electronic generation) of money. The longer we put off the correction, the longer and more painful will be that correction. There are economic laws that cannot be violated. There needs to be a correction with regards to the oversupply of dentists and a correction with the cost of that education.

This is why I have been beating drum for years that we should "wake up those who follow us". Not only dental students interested in ortho, but more importantly, pre-dental students interested in dental school. Speaking in idyllic terms, if, in every town where there is a college, the dentists in that town got together at pre-dental gatherings to give their opinion of the current state of dentistry and their forecast, then maybe we could chip away at the problem instead of waiting for 5-10 years for students to realize how deep a hole they have dug themselves in. Yes, it would be a partly self-serving talk at these gatherings, but any kid with a brain could engage his own self-preservation mechanism and figure this out. Orthos could do the same in towns where there are dental schools.

It could be as simple as them explaining, "Yes, steering you away from becoming a dentist [or orthodontist] will help me, but it will help you as well. You could take that 300K in student loans and open a business instead. Alternatively, if you pursue this avenue, you will graduate with 200-400K [300K-600K] in student loans making only 75-125K [100-150k] per year. These are the laws of economics. You will live a pauper's life paying this burden off. As your predecessors, we have failed you by not properly regulating our own profession. The Golden Age we were sold in dental [orthodontic] school is over. We are now entering the Dark Ages. Enter at your own risk."

Will they listen? They may or they may not. But I think we owe it to them and try. Those that heed the message will be saved. Those that were arrogant to think they knew better and shot the messenger changed nothing about the message and will suffer.

Actually if 4th year dental students or new dentists (who haven't "made" it yet) come talk to pre-dental students as well about the paltry jobs they have to take (if they can even find one), they may listen more intently because they are closer to the their station in life compared to the "fat cats".

I would add that my idea, in addition to reducing the eventual supply of dentists (and orthodontists), would actually lower the tuition for those who, if properly informed of the landscape, have the intestinal fortitude to plow ahead anyway. This is because informing pre-dental students of the dental landscape (and informing dental students of the orthodontic landscape) will cause enrollment to plummet.

Tuition will drop immediately as the schools have to fight for the best candidates by dropping tuition to attract them. Some will not even be able to fight for the best candidate, instead having to try to find any warm body to fill a chair. Some will have to close their doors. So while government guarantees have helped to prop up tuition hikes, the influence of government guarantees on tuition rates will diminish if you can't find people to go to the school. I truly believe unfettered free markets would sort it out, but we do not have that. We have government intervention and pre-dental students that are ill-informed through no fault of their own.

After thinking about this for a very long time, I think the only thing that will work for the profession is the natural swing of the pendulum as kids in college realize it is not worth it to go into dentistry or orthodontics since there are too many GPs and Orthos already and the school loans are staggering. That will drop enrollment and dental schools will have to cut back or close like they did a-la Fairleigh Dickinson & Georgetown in 1990 and Emory in 1988. It is the natural cycle of things, boom and bust. But the carnage along the way will be horrific. Hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, what could help is if we reach out to college kids in pre-dental programs and dental students interested in orthodontics and inform them of what lays ahead lest they be led down the primrose path!

The AAO is powerless and the ADA is complicit. Organized dentistry will not solve this. We, the ones who have gone before, will have to.

Please listen to him. My thread was inspired from a thread he wrote earlier this morning. The baby boomers are selling you down the river. They are opening these schools to give themselves jobs just like Journalism departments. They'll load you up with debt and let you drown. Charleston is a very smart man.

As an applicant for this current cycle, thank you both very much for your insight. I will freely admit not many of us on SDN are mature and open enough to listen to the opinions of those elder than us. Many of us, including myself, continued our rebellious tendencies from high school and puberty into college; I will tell everyone right now, if I told my 19 year old self right now what I should have done and not end up how I am now, he would have 100% not listened. Hell, it's even infuriating right now when I advice current high school students on the prospects of college and future health professions - kids will gun for whatever they set their mind to, and will block out all opposing commentary. The same applies here, albeit the age gap is bigger. I'm not saying EVERYONE here on SDN's Pre-Dental subforum is like that, but over the past few months that's the type of vibe I can feel in here sometimes.

That said, perhaps our negative and combative responses towards you, @Firm, are due to this hectic time in the application cycle. December has just arrived, and with it initial decisions for many dental schools, so I can definitely see how stress and tension levels can be high (I can say for myself my chest physically hurt this past Tuesday). For those of us that have spent so much time, money, and effort striving for this passion and career choice, having someone tell you to completely throw it away and change paths is extremely disheartening. It is hard to say how many of us will actually listen to your advice and how many won't. I assure you, however, that personally I will fall into the latter category. Ultimately it is up to that person to decide whether or not to heed your advice. Perhaps 10-15 years down the line, I will do exactly as you said and say to myself, "Man, I really wish I listened to that guy on SDN."

Personally I can mirror some of your grievances with the dental economy. The office which I currently work at is brand new, and it is saddening to see my boss deal with loans, costs, and establishing a patient base. It makes it even more frustrating when corporations constantly hound us to purchase the practice. I can definitely see where your negativity comes from, because I experience some of it first hand - the outlook for the dental field is not bright as it once was. Dentistry is interesting in that it's being sold at universities, in my opinion, as the perfect balance between the lifestyles of being an MD and the lifestyles of being laid-back and raising a family. I know not everyone has this opinion of the field, but I have met people who think similarly.

I don't know where I'm actually going with this post, but I will say this: some of us here truly appreciate your insight given to the younger generation. Some of us may think you're out to screw us over and hog all of the market for yourselves, but a few of us appreciate that you are looking out for the prosperity of future generations. None of us know what will truly happen in the future, but if any shrivel of information is available that will help us young ones to succeed in it, then personally I think it's worth a damn to open our ears and perhaps consider it.

 

[Eennuson]

So @Firm and @longhornpride so you are both suggesting that one should go to a cheaper school or find a different career without having to acquire so much debt, correct? if so, I would really like some potential alternatives because I won't lie, a big motivating factor for me entering this field is the MONEY and if it is going to be stressful in order to attain that cash, I would definitely like some other suggestions.

 

[Cello]

What do you propose we do? I've taken the long route to dental school, and from all of the forums I've belonged to (and still do) here is a rough breakdown of what professionals in various fields have to say:

Piloting forums: Do not go into this career field. We are glorified bus drivers and we'll all be replaced by machines in the coming decade.
Air traffic control forums: After Reagan broke our union this profession went down hill. The golden years are behind us and we'll all be replaced by automation in the coming decade!
Musician forums: Do not go into this profession if you know what's good for you! Do something that makes money and then do music as a side gig.
Computer programmers (that is my current occupation): If these recent grads keep flooding the market we'll see the continued erosion of our collective incomes! Everyone thinks they can code these days!
Medical forums: Go into dentistry!
Law forums: This is the worst professional experience imaginable! We can't pay back our loans and there are no constraints on the number of graduating lawyers! We should adopt a model more like the AMA / ADA!!
PA forums: This is a good gig if you can get past the fact that you don't have much autonomy and you end up doing a lot of first assists and paperwork...
Veterinarians: Don't even think about this profession unless you can keep your arm up a cow for hours on end only to earn a modest salary with a ridiculous debt burden!

You suggested starting a business. That's easier said than done. What kind of business shall we start? Do we have a market for our idea? Are we any good at what we do? Are you aware of the failure rate of first time businesses? Where do we come up with the capital?!

You guys keep talking about markets and how the one which exists doesn't make sense, but in reality, it makes perfect sense. Dentists have the LOWEST loan default rate of any professional (97%+ repay their loans). As long as dentists are seen as a worthy investment by the powers that be, well, dentists will have to shoulder the unfortunate burden of a market which views them as a reliable cash cow always primed for milking.

I think you make a lot of great points, and I think that more could be done to reign in the supply/demand of dentists. But suggesting that we just magically do something else is really not doing any of us any good. What exactly should we do? Invent the next Facebook? Almost every profession is hurting right now in one way or another. What amazes me though is to read back on old articles and see that they have all been hurting for a long time (even in the 'golden' years). In some respects it really is a matter of perspective.

 

[Firm]

So @Firm and @longhornpride so you are both suggesting that one should go to a cheaper school or find a different career without having to acquire so much debt, correct? if so, I would really like some potential alternatives because I won't lie, a big motivating factor for me entering this field is the MONEY and if it is going to be stressful in order to attain that cash, I would definitely like some other suggestions.

Yeah. I think that's the take home. A lot will make it and be fine. However, if you can't get into your state school it isn't worth it to go to dental school. I was talking with an older predent that was in sales making about $60k/year. He asked if LECOM was worth paying $60K/yr and I told him no way, keep his job.

 

[aznriptide859]

Medical forums: Go into dentistry!

I'd just like to point out the way you said this made it seem all the MD/DO's are going "Don't saturate our markets too!" XD

Also can confirm all my med student friends say the same thing.

 

[oralcare123]

Yeah. I think that's the take home. A lot will make it and be fine. However, if you can't get into your state school it isn't worth it to go to dental school. I was talking with an older predent that was in sales making about $60k/year. He asked if LECOM was worth paying $60K/yr and I told him no way, keep his job.

Actually the older people with jobs and savings are perfect candidates for the private schools

 

[Cello]

My S/O is an orthopod. At a party with fifteen or so fellow orthopods, one asked what I was doing. I told him that I am applying to dental school. He then stood up at the table and announced to everyone that I was the "smartest person in the room" (much to my embarrassment) because I was going to dental school. He later said that he wished he knew what medicine was like before going into it, and that his father-in-law is a dentist.

The grass is always greener...

 

[pikachurro]

I like tertlz

 

[Miley Cyrus.]

I know Firm and we were discussing this on the Orthotown forum this morning. He means well. It was (and has been) my idea to try to warn/inform those who follow us. He just knew that there was a forum (SDN) to discuss this. It is pointless for orthodontists to discuss this amongst ourselves. We cannot change our situations and are stuck, for better or worse. In his case, he caught a wave and made it. In my case, I didn't catch it in time and am floundering. I graduated in 2001. I am still struggling.

I went to a state school with 10k tuition per year, but with living expenses in an expensive city (tiny apartment), I made it up to 125K in loans, luckily frozen at 2.99% interest. Two years of ortho doubled that. I've worked corporate and it sucks. If you have any desire for autonomy in clinical judgment, it will be severely tested. If you have a moral compass, you will see it severely strained. I did my own practice for 8 years. It beats you down and I ended up selling to a colleague 5 miles away in competitive market. Yes, many of you are, like me, idealistic and really enjoy the clinical aspect. All I wanted to do was move teeth. But your concentration on professional contentment cannot defy the laws of economics when you run a business. What comes in must be greater than what goes out. If you don't own your own business and work corporate, they will take care of income and outgo, but you give up autonomy as earlier described.

And lest you think the laws of supply and demand have no hold on you, I tell you plainly that they do. The more dental schools they create, the more dental students in each class, the more dentists that graduate. And the more graduates there are the lower your wages will be. There will always be a new cog being created one year behind you who will be very eager to take your place in the wheel if you don't want to take a pay cut or you try to tell them that this was not how you were taught to treat patients in dental school. And insurance plans will eat up what is left of you. With more dentists, prices will have to drop (yes, even in boutique fee-for-service practices). The pie that these special practices enjoy (the patient who values what they offer despite the cost) is shrinking. I was fee-for-service when I first opened up. Then economic reality hit.

For those that are in dental school, it, like for us already out, is too late to change careers. You are stuck and will have to make the best of it and to help those who follow you. Now for those who follow you (pre-dental), I urge these pre-dentals to take stock of the dental landscape that awaits them with an understanding that things are in a dynamic fluid state and will change. Right now, the winds of change do not bode well. Translation: it's not good and it's about to get a whole lot worse.

I recently looked at the list of all the ADA accredited Ortho residencies and dental schools. I was astonished at the list of new ones since I graduated dental school in 2001:

Midwestern Univ, Glendale, AZ
AZ School of Dentistry, Mesa, AZ
Western Univ of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA
Univ of Colorado, Aurora, CO
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, Bradenton, FL
Midwestern Univ, Downers Grove, IL (suburban Chicago)
Southern Illinois Univ, Alton, IL (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
Univ of New England, Potland, ME
Missouri School of Dentistry, Kirksville, MO
East Carolina Univ, Greenville, NC
Rutgers, Newark, NJ (not 100% sure this was after 2001)
UNLV, Las Veags, NV
Roseman Univ, South Jordan, UT (suburb of Salt Lake City)
Univ of UT, Salt Lake City, UT

What happened to the market self regulating itself? Are the ones that start these programs out of touch with the economics of dentistry?!?! These kids are like lambs being led someplace not not so nice. And that I why I have been beating this drum for awhile. We owe it to those who follow us.

I think now is the time to wake these kids up. Before they take out 400-600K in debt... before they realize they have minimal chance of making it....before they sink the little dinghy the rest of us are crowded on.

But if kids wake up and don't bother applying, enrollment will drop, and schools will have to cut expenses. That will include cutting spots. Professors will have to teach more for less. It will be painful for all. But eventually it will rectify and we may yet have another golden age of dentistry before I retire in 30 years. If not, we will be in the dark ages for a long time.

But the sooner the correction, the better. It is just like anything. Look at the economy and the printing (actually electronic generation) of money. The longer we put off the correction, the longer and more painful will be that correction. There are economic laws that cannot be violated. There needs to be a correction with regards to the oversupply of dentists and a correction with the cost of that education.

This is why I have been beating drum for years that we should "wake up those who follow us". Not only dental students interested in ortho, but more importantly, pre-dental students interested in dental school. Speaking in idyllic terms, if, in every town where there is a college, the dentists in that town got together at pre-dental gatherings to give their opinion of the current state of dentistry and their forecast, then maybe we could chip away at the problem instead of waiting for 5-10 years for students to realize how deep a hole they have dug themselves in. Yes, it would be a partly self-serving talk at these gatherings, but any kid with a brain could engage his own self-preservation mechanism and figure this out. Orthos could do the same in towns where there are dental schools.

It could be as simple as them explaining, "Yes, steering you away from becoming a dentist [or orthodontist] will help me, but it will help you as well. You could take that 300K in student loans and open a business instead. Alternatively, if you pursue this avenue, you will graduate with 200-400K [300K-600K] in student loans making only 75-125K [100-150k] per year. These are the laws of economics. You will live a pauper's life paying this burden off. As your predecessors, we have failed you by not properly regulating our own profession. The Golden Age we were sold in dental [orthodontic] school is over. We are now entering the Dark Ages. Enter at your own risk."

Will they listen? They may or they may not. But I think we owe it to them and try. Those that heed the message will be saved. Those that were arrogant to think they knew better and shot the messenger changed nothing about the message and will suffer.

Actually if 4th year dental students or new dentists (who haven't "made" it yet) come talk to pre-dental students as well about the paltry jobs they have to take (if they can even find one), they may listen more intently because they are closer to the their station in life compared to the "fat cats".

I would add that my idea, in addition to reducing the eventual supply of dentists (and orthodontists), would actually lower the tuition for those who, if properly informed of the landscape, have the intestinal fortitude to plow ahead anyway. This is because informing pre-dental students of the dental landscape (and informing dental students of the orthodontic landscape) will cause enrollment to plummet.

Tuition will drop immediately as the schools have to fight for the best candidates by dropping tuition to attract them. Some will not even be able to fight for the best candidate, instead having to try to find any warm body to fill a chair. Some will have to close their doors. So while government guarantees have helped to prop up tuition hikes, the influence of government guarantees on tuition rates will diminish if you can't find people to go to the school. I truly believe unfettered free markets would sort it out, but we do not have that. We have government intervention and pre-dental students that are ill-informed through no fault of their own.

After thinking about this for a very long time, I think the only thing that will work for the profession is the natural swing of the pendulum as kids in college realize it is not worth it to go into dentistry or orthodontics since there are too many GPs and Orthos already and the school loans are staggering. That will drop enrollment and dental schools will have to cut back or close like they did a-la Fairleigh Dickinson & Georgetown in 1990 and Emory in 1988. It is the natural cycle of things, boom and bust. But the carnage along the way will be horrific. Hyperbole? Maybe. Maybe not.

In conclusion, what could help is if we reach out to college kids in pre-dental programs and dental students interested in orthodontics and inform them of what lays ahead lest they be led down the primrose path!

The AAO is powerless and the ADA is complicit. Organized dentistry will not solve this. We, the ones who have gone before, will have to.

Think it is better to be an ortho or a GP?

 

[darknightzzz]

My S/O is an orthopod. At a party with fifteen or so fellow orthopods, one asked what I was doing. I told him that I am applying to dental school. He then stood up at the table and announced to everyone that I was the "smartest person in the room" (much to my embarrassment) because I was going to dental school. He later said that he wished he knew what medicine was like before going into it, and that his father-in-law is a dentist.

The grass is always greener...

what is an orthopod? what do they do?

 

[darknightzzz]

im an immigrant to US from a second-world country. and reading this thread sounds like i should dig a hole and bury myself .

 

[Cello]

what is an orthopod? what do they do?

Orthopaedic surgeon, sorry.

 

[CharlestonToothCompany]

So, you are still struggling? 14 years after graduation? What went wrong?

I don't really know for sure to be perfectly honest. I suspect a confluence of the following factors: competitive market, lack of business acumen, slightly introverted making hard to break existing referral patterns, steadfast refusal to ever cut a corner, economy tanked 4 years after ortho school (one year after I opened my practice) and maybe a little does of bad luck thrown in for good measure.

@aznriptide859 , thank you for your kind words, but I must contest the "elder" comment ... I'm only 44! Seriously, you have a very mature attitude and I think this will serve you well in life. All I can do is try to give a different perspective so that others can make an informed decision. Who knows, you may end up here in 15 years trying to do the same and tell them about that "crazy elder" no one wanted to listen to!! Thanks again.

 

[Advance]

I like tertlz

Me too.

 

[darknightzzz]

Orthopaedic surgeon, sorry.

so thats a MD? with surgical residence specializing in leg surgery?

 

[bco99]

what is an orthopod? what do they do?

Graze and roar. They went extinct 65m years ago though, not sure how one is still around.

 

[Cello]

so thats a MD? with surgical residence specializing in leg surgery?

Yes, they have an MD and did a surgical residency. They operate on bones and can either practice general ortho or sub-specialize in trauma, joints, spine, hand, foot & ankle, sports, etc.

 

[aznriptide859]

@aznriptide859 , thank you for your kind words, but I must contest the "elder" comment ... I'm only 44! Seriously, you have a very mature attitude and I think this will serve you well in life. All I can do is try to give a different perspective so that others can make an informed decision. Who knows, you may end up here in 15 years trying to do the same and tell them about that "crazy elder" no one wanted to listen to!! Thanks again.

Haha, sorry I meant the age gap was probably bigger comparing you to me now versus me to 19 (I'm 25 now). Since both you and Firm graduated in the early 2000's I figured you both were in perhaps the mid 30's.

 

[bco99]

Cello I'm glad you didn't get the idea I was actually calling your wife a dinosaur haha I almost didn't post that because it seemed offensive

 

[Cello]

Cello I'm glad you didn't get the idea I was actually calling your wife a dinosaur haha I almost didn't post that because it seemed offensive

Well, compared to most dental school applicants we are kind of dinosaurs.

 

[kholley25]

What do you propose we do? I've taken the long route to dental school, and from all of the forums I've belonged to (and still do) here is a rough breakdown of what professionals in the field have to say:

Piloting forums: Do not go into this career field. We are glorified bus drivers and we'll all be replaced by machines in the coming decade.
Air traffic control forums: After Reagan broke our union this profession went down hill. The golden years are behind us and we'll all be replaced by automation in the coming decade!
Musician forums: Do not go into this profession if you know what's good for you! Do something that makes money and then do music as a side gig.
Computer programmers (that is my current occupation): If these recent grads keep flooding the market we'll see the continued erosion of our collective incomes! Everyone thinks they can code these days!
Medical forums: Go into dentistry!
Law forums: This is the worst professional experience imaginable! We can't pay back our loans and there are no constraints on the number of graduating lawyers! We should adopt a model more like the AMA / ADA!!
PA forums: This is a good gig if you can get past the fact that you don't have much autonomy and you end up doing a lot of first assists and paperwork...
Veterinarians: Don't even think about this profession unless you can keep your arm up a cow for hours on end only to earn a modest salary with a ridiculous debt burden!

You suggested starting a business. That's easier said than done. What kind of business shall we start? Do we have a market for our idea? Are we any good at what we do? Are you aware of the failure rate of first time businesses? Where do we come up with the capital?!

You guys keep talking about markets and how the one which exists doesn't make sense, but in reality, it makes perfect sense. Dentists have the LOWEST loan default rate of any professional (97%+ repay their loans). As long as dentists are seen as a worthy investment by the powers that be, well dentists will have to shoulder the unfortunate burden of a market which views them as a reliable cash cow always primed for milking.

I think you make a lot of great points, and I think that more could be done to reign in the supply/demand of dentists. But suggesting that we just magically do something else is really not doing any of us any good. What exactly should we do? Invent the next Facebook? Almost every profession is hurting right now in one way or another. What amazes me though is to read back on old articles and see that they have all been hurting for a long time (even in the 'golden' years). In some respects it really is a matter of perspective.

First of all, I love this thread. Lots of viewpoints and counterpoints. It's a great thread to really understand multiple perspectives on dentistry and the economics surrounding it.

This is a great IMO post for a number of reasons. Every profession will b**** about their salary and the changes and unknowns that come with our evolving economy and field of profession. I think some of those professions have a bit more truth than others. For example, DO NOT DO MUSIC AS A PROFESSION - sister has masters in music and has NO JOB - has to get PhD just to have chance for a career. I think MDs will be okay, not everyone is clamoring to get out of it. I personally was accepted to vet school and it's true when they say the income/debt ratio will scare the s*** out of you.

I think dentistry is a great profession and will be the most financially stable out of the medical professions, even with the changes looming. Markets have a way of correcting themselves (yes, painfully) and there are ways to succeed even in the darkest of time, but it requires sacrifice (in many ways).

Ultimately, I think it's important for us all to keep our eyes and minds open and make decisions only after we've really studied the situation. Should applicants spend 400K+ on their education? Probably not, but it's going to keep happening until something dramatic occurs within the dental market. Hopefully, YOU are in a good position when that happens. We need to plan accordingly.

 

[oralcare123]

I don't really know for sure to be perfectly honest. I suspect a confluence of the following factors: competitive market, lack of business acumen, slightly introverted making hard to break existing referral patterns, steadfast refusal to ever cut a corner, economy tanked 4 years after ortho school (one year after I opened my practice) and maybe a little does of bad luck thrown in for good measure.

@aznriptide859 , thank you for your kind words, but I must contest the "elder" comment ... I'm only 44! Seriously, you have a very mature attitude and I think this will serve you well in life. All I can do is try to give a different perspective so that others can make an informed decision. Who knows, you may end up here in 15 years trying to do the same and tell them about that "crazy elder" no one wanted to listen to!! Thanks again.

This is what you needed to mention before supporting the "don't go to dental school", because it is just not fair. Successful dentists don't spend their time on SDN, they work and adapt to changing conditions. There are plenty of help around for struggling businesses, you just need to want to do something. For example, I am struggling with spelling, especially with words, which sound the same, but have different meaning. I have attitude, that I am fine for now. Can I do something to improve the situation - definitely, but I am not doing much other then writing here and reading a lot, which is not enough. You are struggling, because you refuse to adapt

 

[longhornpride]

So @Firm and @longhornpride so you are both suggesting that one should go to a cheaper school or find a different career without having to acquire so much debt, correct? if so, I would really like some potential alternatives because I won't lie, a big motivating factor for me entering this field is the MONEY and if it is going to be stressful in order to attain that cash, I would definitely like some other suggestions.

I'm not going to tell you what to do. I myself went to a private school and racked up 400k+. I'm on track to pay it off within 5 years but it's taken a mental and physical toll on me. logging in 50-60 hour weeks is not fun. in order to make 250-350k, it has to be volume based. I make more money than I ever thought I would. Except it all goes to loans. By the time it's paid off, I will be so burnt out. I'm already burnt out 18 months in. But I refuse to sit around and have this debt hanging over my head my whole life. If you can get into a state school, you'll be fine. Plenty of money to be made but don't expect some luxurious private practice associate ship. I'm lucky... I work at a private practice that sees quite a few medicaid along with ppo/cash. it's a good mix. I've learned the fresh out of school... the high end patients will eat you alive. they can sense inexperience. my advice is go to a cheap school and work at a place with high income and volume to increase your speed. do that for a year or two. it wont be what you pictured perhaps but it will set you up later for a higher end office. if you want to a FFS or high end ppo office right away, except a much lower salary. anyways, my goal isn't tell you what to do, just giving you my experience. my story is one story. i have plenty of friends that are dentists that are struggling to pay off their 400k debt. they weren't as lucky to find an office like i was so their story is a little different. Short point... dentistry is very competitive. first year or two will be tough coming out. lots of debt. go to the cheapest school. if you're stuck with only options at private schools... take a long hard look at reapplying. You'll dig yourself a very big hole in hopes of finding a very high paying job which is not easy to find.

edit: sorry for the typos and incoherent sentences. i'm typing extremely fast in between patients.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[longhornpride]

Also a heads up, many of these corporate chains will make you sign a contract with the devil. Every cleaning is a 4 quad SRP. Every Crown all of the sudden needs a RCT. Guess what happens when a supervisor comes in and alters your treatment plan.... you can't do jack ****. As a doctor, you fall below the office manager and usually lead assistant... usually people with very little education. They can replace you easily. Much harder to find good assistants/managers. The best part is when you get a big case and a senior doctor takes away the patient.